After breakfast he sat for a little while by the window, looking out and watching the snow-flakes, but he soon got tired of that. His uncle was writing near the stove. There was no one to talk to, and he did not feel like reading. At length he thought that he would go down to the bunk-house where the men slept, and see what Hugh was doing. He could see the outline of the house amid the whirling snow, and supposed Hugh was there. He told his uncle what he was going to do, and Mr. Sturgis looked up and said, "All right, go down to the bunk-house, but go straight there, don't try to go anywhere else. It is easy to get lost in this snow." When Jack entered the bunk-house, a great cloud of snow blew in the open door after him, and as he banged it to behind him, he saw Hugh standing up plaiting a raw-hide rope, Reuben mending his saddle with strings of wet raw-hide, which he took from a bucket of water beside him, while Joe had his feet cocked up on the stove and was smoking and talking to the others. Jack went up to the stove and sat down on a box near Reuben, and watched him, and after a moment Joe went on speaking. "I seen Red Cahill yesterday when I was riding. He was going down from Washakie to the Fort, and calculated he'd stop all night to Powell's. He told me that there's five head of our horses ranging up on Grey Bull. There's the old gotch-eared black mare, and her three-year old, two-year old, and yearling, and that yellow gelding that the boss traded for with them emigrants when they came through here two years ago. You mind we ain't seen that gelding since his feet got well, and I always thought he'd took the trail back the way he come. But it seems not. I don't expect the roundup will fetch them horses in, but it may. Anyhow we can go and get 'em 'most any time, only it's a long way to ride for five head of horses. "Did Red say anything about the Indians at Washakie?" asked Hugh. "That's what he did," said Joe. "He said we won't see no Indians down here this summer. You know them Arapahoes that's up there to Washakie is kinder friends to them Cheyennes that broke out last fall down in Kansas, and got took in to Roberson, and then broke jail there, and most all got killed. He says there's some Cheyennes staying up there with the Arapahoes and they're all stirred up and uneasy over that killing down to Roberson."